It is known to decorate various articles--e.g. bottles--with collars of heat-shrinkable plastic material such as polyethylene that are cut from a flattened tubing or sheath and are subsequently reopened to regain their original shape; the articles fitted with these collars then pass through a heating zone where the collars are tightly shrunk around them.
According to an earlier invention of mine, disclosed in French patent application No. 77.12126 of Apr. 18, 1977, now publication 2,387,900 the reopening of the flattened clippings to form the collars is facilitated by initially compressing the sheath in one longitudinal plane to form a first pair of parallel creases or fold lines and thereafter deforming the sheath with substantial elimination of these creases and compression of the sheath in another longitudinal plane, perpendicular to the preceding one, to produce the tubing to be cut which is characterized by two flat sides bounded by a second pair of creases; the traces of the first pair of creases, extending along centerlines of these flat sides, facilitate the separation of the two sides from each other when pressure is applied to the second pair of creases.
Even with this improvement, however, conventional techniques do not readily lend themselves to a mode of operation enabling such collars to be slipped onto the neck of an oncoming bottle while the latter is moving even at moderate speed. Conventional equipment for partially or completely enshrouding moving bottles or other support elements with collars or jackets of heat-shrinkable plastic or any other material therefore generally require a slow and intermittent motion of a conveyor entraining such support elements, thus resulting in a low output rate, unless a complex turntable arrangement is used for the cutting and transfer mechanisms.